By Edith Warton
Chapter 1: BEGINNINGS
Chapter 1: BEGINNINGS
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| Winter in Starkfield |
If you know Starkfield Massachusetts, you know the post office there. If you know the post office, you have probably seen Ethan Frome driving up to it in his buggy; and you have probably wondered who he was. It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time. He was a noticeable figure. His tall, strong body was badly twisted, and much shorter on the right side than on the left. He moved slowly and painfully, pulling himself along. Just a few steps from his buggy to the post office were clearly difficult for him. His face has a sad, grim look. It was the face and body of an old man, and I was surprised to hear that that he was only fifty-two.
I learnt this from Harmon Gow, a man who knew all the families around Starkfield.
"He's been like that since his bad accident, nearly twenty-four years ago", said Harmon. "But Fromes don't die young, Ethan'll live to a hundred, probably".
"He looks like a dead man already," I said.
"I guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters," said Harmon.
"Most smart people get out of here."
"Why didn't he get out?" I asked.
"He had to stay and take care of his family - first his father got hurt, then his mother fell sick, then his wife."
"And then the accident?" Harmon gave a little smile.
"That's right. He had to stay then."
Ethan Frome used to drive in from his farm every day at about midday, and because I picked up my mail at about the same time, I often saw him. He came to the post office only for a newspaper, and sometimes for a packet from a medicine company for "Mrs Zeena Frome".
Starkfield people understood that he did not want to stop and talk, and on most days Frome climbed slowly back to his buggy and drove away without a word to anyone. At that time, my company had sent me on an engineering job near Starkfield, and I was staying at the home of a lady called Mrs Ruth Hale. Before she was married, her name had been Ruth Varnum, but her husband Ned Hale was now dead, and she had returned to live with her mother in the Varnum home. It was a grand house, large and white, with tall dark trees outside. Although it was clear that the Varnum no longer had much money, theirs was still the finest house in the village.
Ruth Hale enjoyed talking about her neighbours, and I hope that she could tell me more about Ethan Frome. But when I asked her, she just looked unhappy and said in a low voice:
"Yes, I knew them both.....it was awful...."
I asked other people, and everybody in Starkfield agreed that Ethan Frome had had more troubles in his life than most people. But nobody explained why he had that sad, grim look on his face.
In the end, I learnt the story, piece by piece, from several people. As often happens, the story was different each time, but I slowly began to put it together. And my interest in Ethan Frome grew stronger when - a little later - I met the man himself.
It happened like this.
Every day, I had to travel about three miles to the station, where I got my train to work. I usually hired a horse from Denis Eady, the rich village shopkeeper. But in the middle of winter, his and most of the other Starkfield horses caught an illness. For a day or two, I could not find a horse to hire anywhere, until Harmon Gow had an idea. Why don't you ask Ethan Frome to drive you?' He said
"His horse ain't sick, and he needs a dollar or two. That Frome farm and saw-mill don't make enough money to keep a cat alive.
So Ethan Frome agreed to drive me, and every day for a week, I sat beside him in his sleigh as his thin horse pulled us over the hard snow to the station. Then, in the icy evening, he brought me back to Starkfield. He was not unfriendly, but during the hour's drive he never turned to look at me, and spoke very little. Once, I said something about Florida, and he told me that he had been there. Another time, he showed interest in a science book of mine, which I had left in his sleigh by mistake in the morning. But most of the time, Frome drove without a word, and I began to feel that he was like the land around him. This sad, silent man and the snow - covered fields had the same kind of cold loneliness. Anything warm and alive inside him was locked away, under the deep icy cold of too many Starkfield winters.
After about a week, we were driving back one night in terrible weather. Heavy snow were falling, hiding everything in a soft white cloud, and the air had an icy coldness. The old horse was getting tired, and I got out to walk beside him, but I found it hard to keep moving. After a time, Frome looked into the darkness and said: "That's my place down there. We've had enough of this."
I understood that he was offering me a bed for the night, and we turned down toward the poor, lonely-looking farmhouse.
After I had helped him put away the sleigh and take care of the horse, we fought our way through the snow to the front of the house.
I followed him inside, and from behind the door, on our right I heard a woman's voice, a thin, high, whining voice.
Frome opened the door of the room. "Come in" he said to me, and as he spoke, the whining voice fell silent.
That was the night when I began to understand Ethan Frome, and to put together his story....
Chapter 2: COMING HOME FROM THE DANCE
It was a cold, clear night, and the village lay under deep snow. Bright, icy stars shone from a dark sky down on the silent whiteness below.
Young Ethan Frome walked quickly down the empty, moonlit street.
He passed Eady's fine new shop and the Varnums' house with it two tall black trees.
Below that was the slope of the Corbury road. On clear nights, this was often full of young people coasting down, laughing and shouting as they went.
But there was not a sound from the icy slope as Ethan passed by. Tonight all Starkfield's life was in a room in the Church. Its windows sent yellow light across the snow, and the sound of dance music flowed out into the still midnight air.
Ethan hid in the shadows outside the church, and looked in through the nearest window. The room was hot, bright, and filled with young men and girls. The music had finished, and people were getting ready to leave.
Suddenly, a lively young man with thick black hair jumped into the middle of the floor. He went into the crowd and pulled out a young girl. She was dark-haired, and had a bright red scarf around her head. The music started again, and soon the floor was alive with dancing figures.
Outside in the cold, Ethan's heart was beating fast. His eyes followed the girl's red scarf and cloud of brown hair as she danced in faster and faster circles.
The young man was Denis Eady, the son of Starkfield's most successful shopkeeper. Denis's own success with the young women of the village was well known. Ethan watched jealously as Mattie, the dark-haired girl, held Eady's hands and smiled at him with her dark, shining eyes.
"How can she look at him like that?" Ethan wondered unhappily. "Doesn't she realize what he is like?"
Ethan used to walk into Starkfield to fetch home his wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on the few evenings when some chance of amusement brought her to the village.
Mattie had been with the Fromes for a year now. She lived with them in a lonely farmhouse and helped Ethan's wife, Zeena, with the housework.
Ethan had liked the warm, smiling girl from the moment that she arrived. She brought hope and life and brightness into his home, like someone lighting a fire in a cold room. But she had more than brightness, Ethan found that she loved the beauty of the natural world around them. Here, at his side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was someone who felt the same wonder as he did. He could tell her things and show her things - the bright stars in the clear night sky, birds flying over golden fields, the blue shadows of trees on sunlit snow.
And he knew that these things gave Mattie and him the same feelings of deep, silent happiness. But now, those feelings seemed so far away. He watched Mattie laughing face as she flew round and round the room, and he felt lonely and unhappy.
Then he remembered a fear that he had tried to forget. His wife was a cold, silent woman who noticed everything but said very little. Her only real interest was her own ill health. But recently, she had started to complain more and more about Mattie's house work, and to say things which worried Ethan.
"I'll need someone to help me when Mattie leaves," she had said suddenly one morning.
"Oh, Mattie'll never leave us while you need her." He replied.
His wife lay in bed and watched as he got dressed.
"If a poor girl like her has a chance to marry a smart boy like Denis Eady, I ain't going to stop her,"
She said in her flat, whining voice.
"The doctor said I can't manage on my own, so we'll need to hire a girl."
Life without Mattie! Ethan could not think of it. Her voice, her sweet smile, her gentle arm in his arm during those night walks back to the farm - these were the only things which mattered in his world. Had he been stupid to think that Zeena would not notice his interest in Mattie? He had not thought about it before, but now, as he stood in the darkness, outside the church, he remembered other things that Zeena had said, and his fear grew...
The dancers, now in their thick coats and scarves, came out into the cold night air. Ethan heard Mattie 's voice in the crowd, and he stepped back into the shadows, suddenly afraid to speak to her. The crowd quickly disappeared, and Mattie stood alone outside the church, looking around her.
Then a man's figure appeared. "Nobody to walk you home Matt? What a pity! But ain't i lucky that I got my dad's horse and sleigh down here waiting for us? Come on, let's take a ride!.
The girl said nothing but stood still, watching, while Denis Eady went to untie the horse.
In the shadows, Ethan too, watched and waited, with his heart beating fast. Mattie held his life in her hands.
Eady got into the sleigh and called to Mattie to join him. Then she turned and ran up the slope.
"Goodbye, have a lovely ride!" She called back.
Eady laughed and followed her up the slope in his sleigh. After a moment, he jumped down and tried to put his arms around hers. She stepped quickly out of the way, and Ethan sudden fear turned to happiness.
A moment later, he heard the sound of Eady's sleigh going away, and saw Mattie walking alone across the snow. He caught up with her by the Varnums' trees. She turned round, surprised.
"Oh!" She said. "I thought maybe you couldn't come."
"If you thought I couldn't come, why didn't you ride back with Danis Eady? He answered.
"Oh, how did you know?" she cried.
"Where were you? I never saw you!"
They stood in the dark shadows of the trees, and their laughing voices ran together like water dancing down from the mountains in springtime.
He put his arms through hers, but neither of them moved. Ethan wished he could stand there with her all night in the blackness.
Mattie took a few steps forward and then stopped, looking down the icy slope of the Corbury road. 'The were lots of people coating this evening,' she said. 'Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum almost crashed into the big tree down there. It's so dangerous, that tree.'
'You'd be safe with me, Matt', replied Ethan
'Would you like to come coasting some night? We could come tomorrow if there is a moon.'
'Oh, yes. How lovely!'
They walked along in silence, but then all Ethan jealous fears returned.
'I guess it's natural that you're going to leave us,' he said at last.
'Leave? You mean Zeena ain't happy with me? I know I ain't so strong or smart, but I want to try, I really do'.
'So, you don't want to leave us, Matt?'
'Where could I go?' she whispered, almost crying.
Her answer made Ethan said and happy at the same time.
They continued their walk, with the dark, starry sky above them, and the quiet, lonely fields all round.
At the entrance to Ethan's farmland, they passed by the Frome graves. Ethan had always felt that the gravestones were looking at him and saying: 'We never got out of Starkfield. Why should you?'. But now, he didn't want to escape.
All he wanted was to be with Mattie, and some day to lie under that could ground with Mattie beside him. Ethan was happy now, in his world of dreams.
For the first time he put his arms around Mattie. She let it stay there, and they walked up to the farmhouse.
The house was dark and quiet. Zeena always went to bed early. On the night when they came back late, she used to lock up the house and hide the key outside the kitchen door.
Ethan felt for the key under the usual stone.
"Matt, the key's not there!" he said.
This had never happened before.
They began to look for it in the darkness. Suddenly, there was a sound inside the house. They heard a step on the stairs and saw light under the door. Then the door opened, and Ethan saw his wife. She stood in the dark doorway, a tall thin woman with a blanket round her shoulders. She held a lamp in one hand, and its light threw strange shadows onto her thin lined face.
She said nothing, and they stepped into the kitchen. It was deadly cold like a grave.
Ethan shook the snow off his boots. "I guess you forgot us," he said, looking at Zeena.
'No, I just felt too bad. I couldn't sleep.'
'I'm sorry', said Mattie. 'Can I do anything to help, Zeena?'
'No, there's nothing you can do'. Zeena turned away from her.
"And why couldn't you shake that snow off outside?" She said to her husband.
They left the kitchen. And the two women went towards the stairs.
'If I go up now, Mattie'll see me go into the bedroom with Zeena,' thought Ethan.
'Anf I don't want that, not tonight.'
'I think I'll stay down here a bit longer. I've got some paperwork to do,' he said.
'What? now?' said Zeena. 'You'll die of cold.
Ethan did not answer, but turn back towards the kitchen. Then he saw the look in Mattie' eyes.
Was it a look of warning?
'I guess you're right. It's awful cold down here,' he agreed.
With his head down, he slowly followed his wife up to their bedroom.
Chapter 3. A VISIT TO THE DOCTOR
The next morning was cold and bright. Ethan was down at his saw-mill early because he had to take some wood to the village builder that day.
The winter sun burned red in a clear sky, and the sunlight danced over the bright, snowy fields, leaving deep blue shadows under the trees. Ethan thoughts were alway clearest when he was working in the quiet morning air.
Last night, after the bedroom door had closed behind them, Zeena had taken her medicine and gone to bed without a word. Ethan lay next to her, watching the light from under Mattie's door, and thinking. 'Why had he not kissed her on the walk home?' He remembered her soft lips in the moonlight. Now, in the clear morning sunshine, he could still see her face. He could see it in the red sky and in the bright shining snow.
Mattie was a daughter of Orin Shiver, a cousin of Zeena Frome's. Silver medicine company had seemed successful and he had lived like a rich man. But when he died, his wife and daughter had a terrible surprise. They discovered that he had borrowed thousands of dollars which he could not pay back. This awful news killed Mrs Silver immediately. He had also lost money which belonged to his brothers and sisters, so there was nobody in her family wanted to help poor Mattie.
The twenty - year - old girl was alone in the world, without money and without friends. She was not strong, and she had never studied or learnt to do a job. So Mattie came to Starkfield to work, without pay, in her cousin Zeena's home.
At first, Zeena often complained about the girl's work. Then, as the months went by, Mattie grew stronger and found the work easier. Zeena had more time to think about her illnesses, and life under the Fromes' roof became more peaceful.
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Ethan Frome used to drive in from his farm every day at about midday, and because I picked up my mail at about the same time, I often saw him. He came to the post office only for a newspaper, and sometimes for a packet from a medicine company for "Mrs Zeena Frome".
Starkfield people understood that he did not want to stop and talk, and on most days Frome climbed slowly back to his buggy and drove away without a word to anyone. At that time, my company had sent me on an engineering job near Starkfield, and I was staying at the home of a lady called Mrs Ruth Hale. Before she was married, her name had been Ruth Varnum, but her husband Ned Hale was now dead, and she had returned to live with her mother in the Varnum home. It was a grand house, large and white, with tall dark trees outside. Although it was clear that the Varnum no longer had much money, theirs was still the finest house in the village.
Ruth Hale enjoyed talking about her neighbours, and I hope that she could tell me more about Ethan Frome. But when I asked her, she just looked unhappy and said in a low voice:
"Yes, I knew them both.....it was awful...."
I asked other people, and everybody in Starkfield agreed that Ethan Frome had had more troubles in his life than most people. But nobody explained why he had that sad, grim look on his face.
In the end, I learnt the story, piece by piece, from several people. As often happens, the story was different each time, but I slowly began to put it together. And my interest in Ethan Frome grew stronger when - a little later - I met the man himself.
It happened like this.
Every day, I had to travel about three miles to the station, where I got my train to work. I usually hired a horse from Denis Eady, the rich village shopkeeper. But in the middle of winter, his and most of the other Starkfield horses caught an illness. For a day or two, I could not find a horse to hire anywhere, until Harmon Gow had an idea. Why don't you ask Ethan Frome to drive you?' He said
"His horse ain't sick, and he needs a dollar or two. That Frome farm and saw-mill don't make enough money to keep a cat alive.
So Ethan Frome agreed to drive me, and every day for a week, I sat beside him in his sleigh as his thin horse pulled us over the hard snow to the station. Then, in the icy evening, he brought me back to Starkfield. He was not unfriendly, but during the hour's drive he never turned to look at me, and spoke very little. Once, I said something about Florida, and he told me that he had been there. Another time, he showed interest in a science book of mine, which I had left in his sleigh by mistake in the morning. But most of the time, Frome drove without a word, and I began to feel that he was like the land around him. This sad, silent man and the snow - covered fields had the same kind of cold loneliness. Anything warm and alive inside him was locked away, under the deep icy cold of too many Starkfield winters.
After about a week, we were driving back one night in terrible weather. Heavy snow were falling, hiding everything in a soft white cloud, and the air had an icy coldness. The old horse was getting tired, and I got out to walk beside him, but I found it hard to keep moving. After a time, Frome looked into the darkness and said: "That's my place down there. We've had enough of this."
I understood that he was offering me a bed for the night, and we turned down toward the poor, lonely-looking farmhouse.
After I had helped him put away the sleigh and take care of the horse, we fought our way through the snow to the front of the house.
I followed him inside, and from behind the door, on our right I heard a woman's voice, a thin, high, whining voice.
Frome opened the door of the room. "Come in" he said to me, and as he spoke, the whining voice fell silent.
That was the night when I began to understand Ethan Frome, and to put together his story....
Chapter 2: COMING HOME FROM THE DANCE
It was a cold, clear night, and the village lay under deep snow. Bright, icy stars shone from a dark sky down on the silent whiteness below.
Young Ethan Frome walked quickly down the empty, moonlit street.
He passed Eady's fine new shop and the Varnums' house with it two tall black trees.
Below that was the slope of the Corbury road. On clear nights, this was often full of young people coasting down, laughing and shouting as they went.
But there was not a sound from the icy slope as Ethan passed by. Tonight all Starkfield's life was in a room in the Church. Its windows sent yellow light across the snow, and the sound of dance music flowed out into the still midnight air.
Ethan hid in the shadows outside the church, and looked in through the nearest window. The room was hot, bright, and filled with young men and girls. The music had finished, and people were getting ready to leave.
Suddenly, a lively young man with thick black hair jumped into the middle of the floor. He went into the crowd and pulled out a young girl. She was dark-haired, and had a bright red scarf around her head. The music started again, and soon the floor was alive with dancing figures.
Outside in the cold, Ethan's heart was beating fast. His eyes followed the girl's red scarf and cloud of brown hair as she danced in faster and faster circles.
The young man was Denis Eady, the son of Starkfield's most successful shopkeeper. Denis's own success with the young women of the village was well known. Ethan watched jealously as Mattie, the dark-haired girl, held Eady's hands and smiled at him with her dark, shining eyes.
"How can she look at him like that?" Ethan wondered unhappily. "Doesn't she realize what he is like?"
Ethan used to walk into Starkfield to fetch home his wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on the few evenings when some chance of amusement brought her to the village.
Mattie had been with the Fromes for a year now. She lived with them in a lonely farmhouse and helped Ethan's wife, Zeena, with the housework.
Ethan had liked the warm, smiling girl from the moment that she arrived. She brought hope and life and brightness into his home, like someone lighting a fire in a cold room. But she had more than brightness, Ethan found that she loved the beauty of the natural world around them. Here, at his side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was someone who felt the same wonder as he did. He could tell her things and show her things - the bright stars in the clear night sky, birds flying over golden fields, the blue shadows of trees on sunlit snow.
And he knew that these things gave Mattie and him the same feelings of deep, silent happiness. But now, those feelings seemed so far away. He watched Mattie laughing face as she flew round and round the room, and he felt lonely and unhappy.
Then he remembered a fear that he had tried to forget. His wife was a cold, silent woman who noticed everything but said very little. Her only real interest was her own ill health. But recently, she had started to complain more and more about Mattie's house work, and to say things which worried Ethan.
"I'll need someone to help me when Mattie leaves," she had said suddenly one morning.
"Oh, Mattie'll never leave us while you need her." He replied.
His wife lay in bed and watched as he got dressed.
"If a poor girl like her has a chance to marry a smart boy like Denis Eady, I ain't going to stop her,"
She said in her flat, whining voice.
"The doctor said I can't manage on my own, so we'll need to hire a girl."
Life without Mattie! Ethan could not think of it. Her voice, her sweet smile, her gentle arm in his arm during those night walks back to the farm - these were the only things which mattered in his world. Had he been stupid to think that Zeena would not notice his interest in Mattie? He had not thought about it before, but now, as he stood in the darkness, outside the church, he remembered other things that Zeena had said, and his fear grew...
The dancers, now in their thick coats and scarves, came out into the cold night air. Ethan heard Mattie 's voice in the crowd, and he stepped back into the shadows, suddenly afraid to speak to her. The crowd quickly disappeared, and Mattie stood alone outside the church, looking around her.
Then a man's figure appeared. "Nobody to walk you home Matt? What a pity! But ain't i lucky that I got my dad's horse and sleigh down here waiting for us? Come on, let's take a ride!.
The girl said nothing but stood still, watching, while Denis Eady went to untie the horse.
In the shadows, Ethan too, watched and waited, with his heart beating fast. Mattie held his life in her hands.
Eady got into the sleigh and called to Mattie to join him. Then she turned and ran up the slope.
"Goodbye, have a lovely ride!" She called back.
Eady laughed and followed her up the slope in his sleigh. After a moment, he jumped down and tried to put his arms around hers. She stepped quickly out of the way, and Ethan sudden fear turned to happiness.
A moment later, he heard the sound of Eady's sleigh going away, and saw Mattie walking alone across the snow. He caught up with her by the Varnums' trees. She turned round, surprised.
"Oh!" She said. "I thought maybe you couldn't come."
"If you thought I couldn't come, why didn't you ride back with Danis Eady? He answered.
"Oh, how did you know?" she cried.
"Where were you? I never saw you!"
They stood in the dark shadows of the trees, and their laughing voices ran together like water dancing down from the mountains in springtime.
He put his arms through hers, but neither of them moved. Ethan wished he could stand there with her all night in the blackness.
Mattie took a few steps forward and then stopped, looking down the icy slope of the Corbury road. 'The were lots of people coating this evening,' she said. 'Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum almost crashed into the big tree down there. It's so dangerous, that tree.'
'You'd be safe with me, Matt', replied Ethan
'Would you like to come coasting some night? We could come tomorrow if there is a moon.'
'Oh, yes. How lovely!'
They walked along in silence, but then all Ethan jealous fears returned.
'I guess it's natural that you're going to leave us,' he said at last.
'Leave? You mean Zeena ain't happy with me? I know I ain't so strong or smart, but I want to try, I really do'.
'So, you don't want to leave us, Matt?'
'Where could I go?' she whispered, almost crying.
Her answer made Ethan said and happy at the same time.
They continued their walk, with the dark, starry sky above them, and the quiet, lonely fields all round.
At the entrance to Ethan's farmland, they passed by the Frome graves. Ethan had always felt that the gravestones were looking at him and saying: 'We never got out of Starkfield. Why should you?'. But now, he didn't want to escape.
All he wanted was to be with Mattie, and some day to lie under that could ground with Mattie beside him. Ethan was happy now, in his world of dreams.
For the first time he put his arms around Mattie. She let it stay there, and they walked up to the farmhouse.
The house was dark and quiet. Zeena always went to bed early. On the night when they came back late, she used to lock up the house and hide the key outside the kitchen door.
Ethan felt for the key under the usual stone.
"Matt, the key's not there!" he said.
This had never happened before.
They began to look for it in the darkness. Suddenly, there was a sound inside the house. They heard a step on the stairs and saw light under the door. Then the door opened, and Ethan saw his wife. She stood in the dark doorway, a tall thin woman with a blanket round her shoulders. She held a lamp in one hand, and its light threw strange shadows onto her thin lined face.
She said nothing, and they stepped into the kitchen. It was deadly cold like a grave.
Ethan shook the snow off his boots. "I guess you forgot us," he said, looking at Zeena.
'No, I just felt too bad. I couldn't sleep.'
'I'm sorry', said Mattie. 'Can I do anything to help, Zeena?'
'No, there's nothing you can do'. Zeena turned away from her.
"And why couldn't you shake that snow off outside?" She said to her husband.
They left the kitchen. And the two women went towards the stairs.
'If I go up now, Mattie'll see me go into the bedroom with Zeena,' thought Ethan.
'Anf I don't want that, not tonight.'
'I think I'll stay down here a bit longer. I've got some paperwork to do,' he said.
'What? now?' said Zeena. 'You'll die of cold.
Ethan did not answer, but turn back towards the kitchen. Then he saw the look in Mattie' eyes.
Was it a look of warning?
'I guess you're right. It's awful cold down here,' he agreed.
With his head down, he slowly followed his wife up to their bedroom.
Chapter 3. A VISIT TO THE DOCTOR
The next morning was cold and bright. Ethan was down at his saw-mill early because he had to take some wood to the village builder that day.
The winter sun burned red in a clear sky, and the sunlight danced over the bright, snowy fields, leaving deep blue shadows under the trees. Ethan thoughts were alway clearest when he was working in the quiet morning air.
Last night, after the bedroom door had closed behind them, Zeena had taken her medicine and gone to bed without a word. Ethan lay next to her, watching the light from under Mattie's door, and thinking. 'Why had he not kissed her on the walk home?' He remembered her soft lips in the moonlight. Now, in the clear morning sunshine, he could still see her face. He could see it in the red sky and in the bright shining snow.
Mattie was a daughter of Orin Shiver, a cousin of Zeena Frome's. Silver medicine company had seemed successful and he had lived like a rich man. But when he died, his wife and daughter had a terrible surprise. They discovered that he had borrowed thousands of dollars which he could not pay back. This awful news killed Mrs Silver immediately. He had also lost money which belonged to his brothers and sisters, so there was nobody in her family wanted to help poor Mattie.
The twenty - year - old girl was alone in the world, without money and without friends. She was not strong, and she had never studied or learnt to do a job. So Mattie came to Starkfield to work, without pay, in her cousin Zeena's home.
At first, Zeena often complained about the girl's work. Then, as the months went by, Mattie grew stronger and found the work easier. Zeena had more time to think about her illnesses, and life under the Fromes' roof became more peaceful.
(30)
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